by Arienne Thompson, USA TODAY

by Arienne Thompson, USA TODAY

UPDATE: Saturday Night Live creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels tells The New York Times that he's committed to hiring a black woman to join the cast of the iconic sketch show next month.

"All told we've seen about 25 people," Michaels tells the Times of the current round of auditioning sessions. "A lot of the people we saw are really good. Hopefully we'll come out of the process well."

He added that the show may even add two black women, but he doesn't want to disrupt the male-female ratio.

Months after being criticized for its lack of black female performers, news broke that Saturday Night Live held a round of auditions at L.A.'s Groundlings Theater a few weeks ago specifically for black women, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"Omg I am at the Groundlings theater about to audition for #SNL please pray for me yall!" comedian Tiffany Haddish tweeted on Dec. 2.

The women were reportedly contacted by SNL to attend auditions and, while it's unclear how many showed up, comedian Simone Shepherd posted a photo to her Instagram account from the audition showing her surrounded by 10 fellow actresses. "The hilarious BLACK women who just rock (sic) the SNL audition. #WeJustMadeHistory,"she captioned the snap.

Scandal actress Kerry Washington hosted the show in early November after the controversy about the show's diversity problem bubbled up. However, the last black actress to be featured as a player on the show was Maya Rudolph, who left in 2007.